A Time For Every Matter
by wannabewillow01
Summary: After Voldemort kills Harry Potter, Hermione must travel back in time to save him. But when her Time Turner breaks, she ends up stranded in the Hogwarts of the past. Read and review! RHr LJ among others.
1. A Time To Seek

CHAPTER ONE  
**A Time To Seek**

* * *

_Most people think time is like a river that flows swift and sure in one direction. But I have seen the face of time and I can tell you – they are wrong. Time is an ocean in a storm._

* * *

Voldemort withdrew the sword from Harry Potter's body and laughed. 

Harry collapsed like a sack of flour flung to the ground.

Behind him Hermione Granger, restrained by two Death Eaters, screamed. Ron Weasley struggled with the Death Eaters holding him, wrestling and yelling things that his mother would not approve of.

"Let them go." Voldemort said to the Death Eaters. "Let them go back to their precious Order of the Phoenix and their cats and old women. Tell them Harry Potter is dead and Lord Voldemort reigns supereme. Tell them I will have the power of which I have always dreamed."

"No!" yelled Ron.

"Yes." laughed Lord Voldemort. "Now go on. Go back and be the heralds of my return. The whole world will tremble before the name of Lord Voldemort! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" he cackled.

Hermione made one last desperate look at Harry's body before Apparating. The crack she heard just before she disappeared meant Ron had done the same.

* * *

Hermione Apparated in at the gate of the Hogwarts Grounds to see Ron pelting up the hill towards the castle, his robes flying behind him. She ran after him, desperation and terror egging her on. They burst through the oaken front doors of the castle together, startling several students who happened to be in the Entrance Hall. "Professor McGonagall!" cried Hermione desperately. "Where is she?" 

"In her office I think." said one of the students. "Do you need –" but Ron and Hermione were off, dashing up the steps. They were out of breath by the time they reached the seventh floor and the hulking gargoyle that guarded the entrance to McGonagall's office.

"Aberdeenshire." gasped Hermione. The stone gargoyle jumped aside and Hermione and Ron raced up the spiral steps, skipping stairs in their hurry.

The two of them burst through the doors of Professor McGonagall's office. "Professor!" Hermione cried urgently, "oh Professor McGonagall –"

Minerva McGonagall looked up from her desk, half-rising from her seat. "Miss Granger – Mr. Weasley – what has happened?"

"It's Harry." Ron gasped. "He's gone."

"Oh Professor." Hermione said. "Voldemort killed Harry. He's dead."

McGonagall dropped back into her chair, putting a hand on her chest. "Mr. Potter is dead?"

"Voldemort killed him right in front of us." said Ron grimly. "Ran him through with a dirty great sword."

Professor McGonagall turned pale. "Oh dear." she said.

"What do we do Professor?" Hermione wailed. "There's no one to stop Voldemort from taking over now!"

McGonagall pursed her lips and put her hands on the desk. "I suppose ... I suppose now is the time ..."

"Professor?" Hermione asked.

McGonagall paused for a moment. "I suppose I should tell you. I think you're the only ones –" She hesitated, then the words came spilling out of her in a precise clipped tone. "When Albus ... was killed, he left me a ... special sort of Time-Turner. It has ... unusual powers, I've seen them for myself." She pulled her wand out of her robes and tapped the desktop in a complicated sequence. With a click the top of the desk lifted open.

Hermione blinked several times. McGonagall lifted something out of a hollow in the desktop, and then closing the desk, set it on the desk. Hermione blinked a few more times. It was a Pensieve, which looked ordinary enough, and a Time-Turner, but McGonagall was right, this Time-Turner really was special. It had the single hourglass she was used to from her third year, but it had an additional hourglass turning inside the larger hourglass. Hermione opened her eyes and stared.

Professor McGonagall held the Time-Turner out to Hermione and Ron. They looked at each other. "One of you needs to take it." Professor McGonagall said with her usual crispness.

"Should –" Hermione said to Ron.

He was pale. "No, you need to, Hermione. It should be you, you've done this before."

It was true, she had. She reached across the desk and took the Time-Turner from Professor McGonagall. McGonagall pushed the Pensieve toward her. "Instructions from Albus on how to use it. Take the Time-Turner with you when you go in."

Hermione stood. Holding the Time-Turner in her right hand, she leaned down, putting her face into the Pensieve. The surface broke over her face like a veil. The Pensieve took her and she fell, landing on her feet in another version of the headmaster's office. Rain spattered at the windows and a fire burned in the hearth ... and standing before her, with his own version of the Time-Turner that she held, was Albus Dumbledore. A flood of sadness washed over her. It had been nearly a year since Professor Dumbledore's death.

"Professor Dumbledore." Hermione said.

He nodded his head once at her. "Miss Granger."

She raised her eyebrows. "But this is just a memory – so you were –"

"No, Hermione" he said, "I wasn't expecting you ... though perhaps I should have ... what with your cleverness and your proximity to Harry Potter. No, Miss Granger, this is something more than a memory. A piece of myself, enough that I can communicate and make myself understood to whomever enters."

Hermione frowned. "It's not a Horcrux then, is it?"

He chuckled. "No, Miss Granger. More along the lines of a piece of my spirit and memory, just enough to let me remember and respond. But we haven't much time, so let's begin. I see you brought your Time-Turner?"

Hermione held hers up.

"Very good. You are, of course, familiar with how a regular Time-Turner works. This one behaves slightly differently." Dumbledore raised his and pointed at the inner hourglass. "The inner hourglass allows you to actually _rewind_ time ... not merely to travel back in time as you did in your third year, but to go back and live those moments again. I caution you, however, that you cannot go back more than about five minutes. Also –" he paused and smiled. "It does tend to leave those around you when you use it with a slight feeling of deja vu."

Hermione couldn't shake the feeling that originally he had said something else. It teased at the edge of her consciousness, but she couldn't remember what it was. "How do I use it?" she asked.

"Turn the inner hourglass. Time will start to rewind. Then turn it back again when you want to stop. Try it now." Dumbledore said encouragingly.

Hermione peered at the Time-Turner doubtfully, but then flicked the little hourglass over. Around her the world blurred. She saw Dumbledore explaining something and gesturing and heard a shadowy echo of his words. She flipped the hourglass over again and the world snapped back into normal motion. "– deja vu." Dumbledore was saying. He looked expectantly at her. "Do you need instructions on how it works?"

"No." Hermione said reeling. "No, I think I understand. I – thank you, Professor."

"All mine." Dumbledore said pleasantly. "Whatever it is you need this for ... whatever wrong you are working to correct ... good luck, Miss Granger."

She just had time to nod when she felt herself lifting out of the Pensieve. Ron peered at her hopefully. "Well?" he asked. "Does it work? Will it help?"

"I think so." Hermione said faintly.

"Well then." Professor McGonagall said crisply. "You know what you must do, Miss Granger. I expect to see you again when matters are righted." She gave Hermione a solemn look.

"Hermione ..." Ron drew her to him and kissed her. "Come back. When everything's over come back."

"I will." she whispered. "I'll fix things and then I'll come back."

Ron let her go. Hermione stepped away from the desk, turned the Time-Turner and vanished.

* * *

**Author's Notes**: So did you like it? R/R pls! Next chapter: Hermione lands in the past. But who will be there to greet her? 


	2. A Time to Keep Silence

CHAPTER TWO  
**A Time to Keep Silence**

* * *

_Time present and time past  
A__re both perhaps present in time future,  
__And time future contained in time past._

* * *

Hermione Granger flipped her Time-Turner over and watched as the world blurred around her, jerking into reverse. She flipped it again and the images sped up, flipped it once more and they climbed to a nauseating pace. Day and night blinked past outside the windows of the headmaster's office. She flipped the Time-Turner again, not even really sure where she was going, just knowing that she had to go back to before Harry was killed, a time when she could make it all right.

_Flip. Flip_. She hurtled back in time, scared to stop for fear that it wouldn't be the right time. Outside the windows, seasons were passing in rapid succession. She flipped the Time-Turner one more time ... and with a terrible sound like shattering glass, it cracked. Everything around Hermione went black, and she felt herself sliding away from consciousness ...

* * *

Wherever she landed, she landed hard and it was enough to wake her from the daze she had slid into. She lay on the ground, eyes shut, recovering from the shock of falling through time. She felt footsteps vibrating the floor beneath her and then a voice said, "What is the meaning of this?"

"Professor Dumbledore?" Hermione gasped, sitting up straight. He frowned down at her, the usual grandfatherly twinkle gone from his face, replaced by a solemn sternness.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Why are you in my office?"

"I'm Hermione Granger, Professor." Hermione said, scrambling to her feet. "I'm a Hogwarts student in the future. I was ... I had to go back in time to find help, but my Time-Turner broke and I ended up here." She held up the Time-Turner Professor McGonagall had given her. The outer hourglass had cracked but the inner one was still intact. Dumbledore's eyes widened just perceptibly before he put on his usual implacable wisdom. "When is here anyway?" she asked.

Dumbledore went round and sat back at his desk. "This is August 31, 1976." he said. "The fall term is just about to begin."

"1976 ..." Hermione fell silent, shocked by the implication. She had only meant to go back a few months, a year at most. Instead she was 20 years out of her own time ... and with no way of getting back to 1996 besides the hard one.

"This used to be yours." Hermione said, holding out the Time-Turner to Professor Dumbledore. "Can you fix it?"

He took it from her and inspected it, adjusting his spectacles. "I believe time itself will fix that Time-Turner." he said after a few minutes. "It appears to have cracked because all its temporal energy was discharged. Store up more temporal energy and it will repair itself, allowing you to go home."

"How ... how do I do that?" Hermione asked.

Dumbledore looked grave. "Unfortunately the only way to allow the Time-Turner to absorb temporal energy is to expose it to temporal energy. To live, Miss Granger. Possibly for several months."

Hermione gaped. "You mean I have to stay here for months? But I don't have months! Harry ... Ron ... they need me! I can't just stay here for months while my future gets all screwed up!"

"Right now, Miss Granger, your future is not happening." Professor Dumbledore said sternly. "You changed that the moment you left. Whoever Harry and Ron are, they are past worrying about. We will make room for you here at Hogwarts. You look about the right age to be a student."

"I'm a seventh year." Hermione said falteringly. "Head Girl."

"As I suspected. You would have to be brilliant to have been given that Time-Turner. Due to circumstances, though, we'll just have to slot you in wherever we're able. There is a vacancy in the Ravenclaw dormitories. We can put you there."

"Please, sir" Hermione said, "could I be put in Gryffindor instead? In my own time, I'm a Gryffindor." Although she didn't say it, she was sure Professor Dumbledore understood her need for something familiar if she was going to be marooned in the past.

Dumbledore surveyed her over his spectacles, tapping his fingers together. "Perhaps you should be placed in Gryffindor. Coming this far, you certainly have the courage of a Gryffindor, and people would wonder about your placement ..."

It was then that Hermione's brain finally caught up with the reality she was in. In 1976, Harry's parents were still in school; Head Boy and Girl this year, she remembered. And if Harry's parents were still in school, that meant ... "I can't be placed in Gryffindor!" she blurted. "There are people I know in there." The whole school, she realized, would be riddled with people that she knew or knew of in her own time. How many Death Eaters were here in incubation? How many lost and dead? Her head swam. This was going to be harder than it seemed, and it hadn't seemed easy to begin with.

"When it is time for you to depart, Miss Granger, I will put an Unremarkable Charm on you." Dumbledore said. "Those that you meet here will in the future find it hard to recall your name or face. All the same, however, I think it best that you should use an assumed name."

Hermione thought for a moment. "I think ... Helen Farmer?" she offered. "I think I can remember to use that."

"Helen?" Dumbledore asked.

"It's my mother's name." Hermione said.

"Very well then, Miss Granger – or should I say, Miss Farmer. I will see about getting you enrolled at Hogwarts as a seventh-year in Gryffindor. Here ..." He rummaged in his desk and pulled out a small moneybag. "Hogwarts has a scholarship fund for needy students and I'll see that you receive funding from it, but meanwhile here are some advance funds. You'll need to go down to Hogsmeade and purchase a new Hogwarts uniform. You can't be seen in that one – perhaps I should keep it for you?"

Hermione slipped off her Hogwarts robe, emblazoned with the Hogwarts crest and the silver pin that marked her as Head Girl, revealing the simple Muggle clothes she preferred to wear under her robes: a blue sweater and neat khaki skirt. They would have to do for a trip down to Hogsmeade.

Dumbledore took a parchment and started writing scratchily on it with a quill. "This is a note for you to give to Hagrid, the groundskeeper. He will walk you down to the gates and let you in once you have completed your trip to Hogsmeade." He handed the note to her.

"Thank you." Hermione said.

"Good luck, Miss Farmer." Dumbledore said solemnly.

"Thank you, Professor Dumbledore." Hermione said, and clutching her note and the bag of money, she departed his office.

* * *

**Author's Note**: Oh no! 1976? Hermione will start to meet the other students soon, but then there are complications. Review pls pls pls! 


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